Since the fiasco of the broken level, we have been planning another coop. The Geek has been bringing home scrap 2×4’s from work for the past year. Each time the Man Who Knows Everything is here, we sketch ideas and discuss shed-roof versus a hip-roof. Finally the time was upon us to work on it! Naturally the heat index went through the roof but since TMWKE had just spent 2 weeks with Red, this seemed easy in comparison!

As you can see there is quite a size difference here. Right now the girls are just 8 weeks old and are managing in the old coop, but I think they are really going to appreciate the extra room!

Red is inspecting the progress. We point out exciting things like the awesome linoleum that is way nicer than what is in our kitchen and the chicken wire across the top for ventilation.

Red points out the nifty design features to Buddy, and apparently asks him to imagine opening the door.

As you can see there is a ever so slight difference between the “Coop Redo” and our first attempt. My suggestion? Never attempt a chicken coop without at least one Man Who Knows Everything.

You can’t see the beautiful shingles that the Geek got for 1/2 off and nailed down in the 90+ heat, but they are there! Man that is a sexy chicken coop! Just needs a door!

I never thought I would be envious of chicken coops. Nevertheless, after lurking around for quite sometime on Backyard Chickens I found some coops that filled me with a difficult to explain covetousness. As you can see, some people are ridiculously blessed in the coop area.

The problem with having a coop of our own is that The Geek, my beloved, is a very….frugal (YES CHEAP! Oh he is SOOOO CHEAP!) individual. He said we didn’t have the money to buy one of those lovely manufactured coops. He said we could build one ourselves! I have only one issue with that scenario. Our combined knowledge of building comes to about –16. So just one issue, but a pretty significant one.

Here is what WE have so far. Looks slightly different from the other chicken palaces doesn’t it?

One of my primary goals is to be a functional self-sufficient family. We have a slightly sloping ¼ acre that I want to have under cultivation next spring. As you can see from prior reports the plan is to have a free ranging laying flock sufficient for our needs and then some. I would also like to raise at least 20 free-range meat chickens per year. That should approximate to 100 lbs of chicken meat. Another goal for the spring is to get a nice dual purpose cow, with an eye to raise and slaughter one calf per year and naturally utilize the excess milk. And of course the foundation of our family/business venture—the horses.

So we need to learn about:

Gardening

Canning

Raising and processing free range chickens

Raising cattle for beef and for dairy

Carpentry

Accounting and marketing wouldn’t hurt either!

Our cumulative knowledge of these things is approximately zero (unless the fact that the Man Who Knows Everything is my father confers genetic knowledge!)
If you have any thoughts concerning books or websites that you have found helpful on the above topics—please let us know!